OrasiLabs provides virtual classroom labs for hands-on training. These labs offer a safe, reliable sandbox for students to complete practice exercises. At the same time, instructors have complete control over the virtual classroom, including starting and stopping labs, monitoring the student labs in real-time, and even taking control of the student labs to help students when they have a problem.

For students, it all starts when you are enrolled in a class. You’ll automatically get a personalized email invitation with everything you need to connect. And, you only need an internet browser so no setup is required. Attached to the email invitation are detailed instructions on how to login as well as an electronic meeting request for your calendar.

For a video walkthrough of the OrasiLabs Student Experience, view the video below:

The first thing you should do when you receive the invitation email is to test your internet connection. Just click the Connection Check button in the email and a browser page will open that runs through a variety of tests. This just makes sure your browser and network connection are compatible with OrasiLabs. If all goes well, you’ll see an image of a rocket ship launching and you can click “Yes” to the confirmation prompt. If there’s a problem of any kind, the issue will be listed and you’ll be asked if you want the OrasiLabs Support team to help you resolve it.

For more information about the connection check, please see the article Running a Connection Check. For information about how fix connection problems, please see the article Troubleshooting a Lab Connection.

When it’s time for class, you just need to click the Join Class button in the invitation email. A new browser page will open and log you directly into the Student Portal for your class. If for any reason you can’t use the Join Class button (e.g., you want to use a different browser) then you can copy the URL from the email by right-clicking on the Join Class button and selecting Copy Link. You can even login manually by clicking on the link provided and entering the user name and access code in the email.

For more information about how to login to a class, please see the article Logging into a Class as a Student.

If your instructor has added a web conference to the class you will have the ability to connect to the built-in OrasiLabs conferencing or you will get a pop-up with the link to an external web conference.

For more information about OrasiLabs conferencing, please see the article Joining a Class Conference as a Student. For more information about the Student Portal, please see the article Using the Student Portal.

If your instructor has made any files available to you in your student portal, they will be organized in folders in the Class Materials tab. From here, you will be able to download the files to access them locally.

Back on the My Labs tab, you’ll see a thumbnail for each lab resource that the instructor set up for you. Most students only need one lab but occasionally you’ll see more than one. Click on the lab thumbnail to log into the lab machine. When you’re ready to start using it, click on the Expand button in the top right corner of the thumbnail and the Expanded view will open.

In the Expanded view, you can use this lab as if it were your own personal machine. This is a virtual sandbox dedicated to you, so changes you make won’t affect anyone else and no one else has access to this machine except you and your instructor.

You can also access the lab options from here by clicking on the Options tab on the far right side of the screen. From the Options pop-out window, you can set the content for the lab’s clipboard, change the display resolution if necessary, and position a special keys overlay onto the remote instance. 

In some cases, the differences in display resolution between your local PC and the virtual machine will cause the fonts to be fuzzy or hard to read. To fix this, you can switch to Full Screen mode by selecting the Full Screen button in the top right corner of the Expanded view. This uses your entire screen to display the lab and usually resolves most resolution and icon sizing issues. You’ll notice you still have access to the Options tab in the Full Screen view as well.

To exit Full Screen view, just click the Escape key or move your mouse to the very top of the screen and click on the “X” icon. This will put you back in the Expanded view where you can either switch back to Full Screen mode or click on the Collapse button in the top right corner to return to the thumbnail view.

Also notice that at any time while you’re using your lab, you can ask for help. Just click the Request Help button from the My Labs tab and your instructor will get a  notification that you’ve asked for help. Normally when this happens, the instructor will open your lab to see what you’re doing and can answer your question. If they need to, the instructor can even take control of your lab’s mouse and keyboard to help you fix the problem. Of course, while all of this is happening, you can still see what they are doing and have complete control of your lab at the same time.

You can also use the My Labs tab to pause your machine at any time too. Just click the Pause button in the lab ribbon at the bottom of the screen. This will create a saved snapshot of all the work you’ve done and shut down the operating system. To resume the lab from where you left off, just click the Play button in the lab ribbon to start the machine again. If you ever need to return to a previously saved snapshot, your instructor can roll back your lab, on request.

And that’s all there is to it! It’s just that easy. Good luck with your next training class and we hope you enjoy using OrasiLabs!

Running a Connection Check

Troubleshooting a Lab Connection

Logging into a Class as a Student

Using the Student Portal

Joining a Class Conference as a Student